3:13 AM
Vegetarian
Milk (as cow’s milk will be referred to in this essay) has been around for centuries. Europeans kept cows for milk and to make from milk butter, cream, and cheese. Milk was a practical food source. Milk was readily available and also enduring, lasting the length of a cow’s life. Meat, on the other hand, could only be eaten once and then was finished, and vegetables were only available once fully grown. Milk and dairy foods were delicious as well. So when the Europeans moved to America, they brought along with them this tradition of making food from cow’s milk. This is the reason dairy has been a staple food choice for Americans since the country’s beginning.
In the 1993, long after Europeans first settled the United States, California dairy processors came together to create the Got Milk? campaign. With this campaign, the dairy industry suddenly turned milk into an American “icon.” Milk became cool and fun. The “Got milk?” slogans, to this day, appear everywhere from bulletin boards and magazines to TV and t-shirts. Usually the ads display celebrities, making the ads more appealing to young people. Americans should ask themselves: what was the dairy industry’s motivation behind hyping up and promoting their own product? Was it because they were highly concerned with Americans suffering from osteoporosis? Or was it because the dairy industry was failing, and needed to make some major money? The truth about the dairy industry’s motivation in creating the “Got milk?” campaign might reveal whether or not their claims of milk being healthy were ever based on honest findings or on fabricated, exaggerated, statements. The United States Department of Agriculture, as well, has taken many steps to help promote milk and dairy products. By giving dairy its own category in the food pyramid and by recommending people drink two to three cups of milk a day, the USDA has officially claimed dairy as the most reliable, if not only, source of calcium to get big, strong bones. Upon close, objective examination, though, milk seems not to be such a valuable source of nutrients for the human body or a logical food choice at all.
First of all, humans are the only animals that continue consuming milk after being weaned. In the wild, every young mammal is weaned from milk at a genetically appropriate age and never drinks milk again. Calves are no exception. The enzymes needed to digest milk, rennin and lactase, are gone after a certain period of time for all babies. For humans these enzymes are gone by the age of three. The purpose is so that animals can eventually rely on substantial food for their nutrients. For example, when a calf becomes fully grown, it discontinues getting nutrients from its mother milk but instead relies fully on simple, green grass. In fact, the strongest and largest animals in the world (except for whales) do not drink milk during adulthood, or even eat meat – elephants, rhinoceroses, and gorillas are vegetarians, just like cows. Therefore, isn’t it possible that most, if not all, nutrients the human body requires to be healthy and strong can be obtained through the consumption of vegetables and fruits, rather than from milk and other food products? By nature, milk is designed for one purpose only: to feed the young of the species. Humans are currently the only animal in the world, other than tamed animals, who are never weaned.
Another illogical reason to drink milk is because the anatomy of cows differs greatly from the anatomy of humans. For one, cows have four stomachs. Calves need four stomachs to digest the strong milk of its mother. In cow’s milk, casein, the ingredient that helps develop big bones, is three hundred times more than in human milk. The simple reason for this because cows are much bigger than humans, especially in terms of bone mass, and need much more calcium.
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